From Wing Ding Event on Friday March, 5

On Friday, March 5 XPACE hosted a Cupcake Decorating Contest as part of our
Wing Ding Friday's event nights. We had a pretty big turnout and  
ended up with quite a variety of creative designs by the end of the night.
Our next Wing Ding Friday will be a bookbinding workshop on April 2nd.

Here are some photos to check out from the delicious evening...

Hito Steyerl, The Building, 2009

Between the Arts. What and Where Is German Photography Now?

Presentation by Felix Hoffmann, Chief Curator at C/O BERLIN
Ryerson University CONTACT Lecture Series
Monday, March 22, 7PM
Ryerson University – Library Building, Room 72
350 Victoria St at Gould St


Within Germany’s art scene, the medium of photography retains a strong presence on multiple levels. Over the past decades, a number of newly significant movements in the field of art education and art production have established themselves alongside the world famous Düsseldorf School of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth or Candida Höfer.

Between the Arts. What and Where Is German Photography Now? will examine these developments and provide an overview of the new schools of photography in Germany, while discussing the artistic and structural changes since 1990.

Felix Hoffmann, one of Europe’s most innovative photo and media art curators, is an art historian and art theorist, and is currently Head Curator at C/O Berlin.

Co-presented by the Ryerson Gallery & Research Centre, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, the School of Image Arts and CONTACT.

–

The War According to eBay

Lecture by Berlin based artist Hito Steyerl
Ryerson University CONTACT Lecture Series
Monday, March 29, 7PM
Ryerson University – Library Building, Room 72
350 Victoria St at Gould St

Hito Steyerl presents an illustrated talk about three documentary projects: an analysis of the sale of war photography on eBay, as well as a discussion of two of her own recent works entitled The Building andAfter the Crash.

The War According to eBay analyzes the fact that amateur photos of German soldiers in WWII constitute a growing market on eBay. In order to emphasize copyright claims, eBay vendors add various markings to the pictures, which Steyerl uses to talk about the original events as seen via their commodification and distribution on the internet.

Hito Steyerl is a Berlin based filmmaker, video and installation artist as well as a writer in the areas of essayist documentary and postcolonial criticism. Her award winning films and installation projects have been seen all over the world, including at Manifesta 5, Documenta 12, the Shanghai Biennial, the Rotterdam Film Festival and many other venues.

Co-presented by the Ryerson Gallery & Research Centre, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, the School of Image Arts, the Images Festival and CONTACT.

For more information contact Alice Jaroschek, 416 979 5000 x 2030

The Theatre Centre and Tanya Mars want to extend a Special Offer to their friends XPACE Cultural Centre. In her first Canadian performance since winning a 2008 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, see Tanya Mars’ Six Images in Search of an Artist: Remix.

Get 2 for 1 tickets* (2 tickets for only $10) if you email boxoffice@theatrecentre.org and cite the promo code: TM-XPACE (please include your name and phone number so a box office representative can call you to finalize your order) *A $1 Facility Fee per ticket and a $1 transaction fee applies for all orders. Your 2 for 1 ticket covers unlimited in/out privileges over the course of both March 18th and 19th.

Location: The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen St West, Toronto FREE FALL ‘10 – is a biennial festival celebrating innovation and risk in performance. This year sees nine new works by leading artists - emerging and established – from across Canada.

OTHER PACKAGE DEALS FOR FREE FALL:
Emerging Artist Package: see 3 shows for $35 (One Reed Theatre, The Chop Theatre and Why Not Theatre) Call The Theatre Centre box office at 416.538.0988 to order this package.

Out-Of-Towner Special: see either The Chop Theatre (Vancouver) or Bill James / Atlas Moves Watching (Peterborough) and get $10 off Theatre Junction (Calgary) when you show your ticket stub at the Harbourfront Centre box office.

Festival Pass: see up to seven shows for $60. Passes can only be ordered by phone, by calling Harbourfront Cenre at 416.973.4000.

More Information on Free Fall www.theatrecentre.org or
www.harbourfrontcentre.com

Junk Drawer. Kelly Lycan (courtesy of Akimbo)

Upon seeing Perpetuities and Accumulations at Gallery 44 this past weekend, I couldn’t help but question the reasoning behind the processes of collecting personal and digital data.  With Miscellaneous Images Galore, Daniel Olson uses a computer screen saver program to randomly select photographs, paintings, drawings and text documents.  The result is a mish-mash of imagery that could act as a personal portrait of the artist yet, at the same time, the images are so varied and numerous that reasons behind including each image are unclear.

Along with this eccentric collection of imagery, Olson includes a soundtrack “drawn from a previous work [of his]… and consists of recordings of [himself] playing a collection of 246 toy instruments that he accumulated over a fifteen year period” (Matotek 10).  Here, one can see that Olson blurs the line between a personal history and ambiguous information.  Perhaps it is fair to say that given our culture of widespread mass imagery, it is the enduring information that is given precedence while the personal story gradually recedes into the background.

In a different approach, Kelly Lycan’s installation titled Junk Drawer is made of printed digital photographs mounted on plywood.  Images represent items such as a Walmart receipt, a roll of painters tape, a pencil, a cork, and miscellaneous containers.  These images are all printed to be roughly the same size and are placed flat on the floor of the gallery.  With each item being of similar size to the next, one can observe that there is no item of greatest importance.  With this, I feel that the significance of each item is overwhelmed by the whole collection of images.  Also, there is more than one level of collecting that occurs.  Lycan’s work extends the junk drawer into a space of digital archiving and data, then uses this data to represent the contents of a junk drawer.  Although the items themselves offer a shared sense of personal identity, I feel that the personal story behind the collection becomes somewhat irrelevant, while notions of archiving and accumulation are brought to the fore.

Miscellaneous Images Galore. Daniel Olson (courtesy of Akimbo)

To sum up this post, I wish to consider several questions: What does it mean to have these digital archives represent and communicate our cultural memories?  Each image in this exhibition has a double life – the first being of the tangible object or space that is recorded and the second being the existence of the data that represents it.  Also, why do we collect, preserve or even hoard these snippets of personal data? Am I trying to preserve an imprint of myself in this tangled web of information, or do I use this technology to communicate a different sense of authenticity regarding my experiences and possessions?

These are a few of my thoughts after visiting Perpetuities and Accumulations.   Feel free to add your thoughts here, on Xblog.

Bibliography

Matotek, Jennifer.  “Perpetuities and Accumulations: Kelly Lycan and Daniel Olson.” <http://www.gallery44.org/navbar/index.html>.

Selena’s Bio

Selena L. Lee is an experimental photographer and digital artist. Currently, she is exploring phenomena that are unique to the virtual realm. Selena is fascinated with making art out of information, exploring the processes and implications of using digital resources, and drawing attention to the numerous functions of the virtual realm that are easily taken for granted. The artist experiments with presenting her work in both plastic and electronic media and often intends for her work to be exhibited in its digital form.

Selena L. Lee is currently in her final year of a BFA at York University in Toronto. In Toronto, she has shown in galleries such as Gallery 1313, De Leon White Gallery, and Lens Factory. Her next steps involve developing her skills and knowledge regarding the virtual realm, and designing data to express stories in her work. And this is Selena’s first blog at XBLOB!

Walter Phillips Gallery

From Toronto I moved to Banff, AB to take the position of Curatorial Work-Study at the Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre. From a large city with countless galleries, events, performances and talks I arrived in a town where I found myself working for the only institution of cultural significance. Imagine working for an institution that is actively contributing critical material to the broader contemporary art dialogue, filled with people in studios furiously making art, large facilities at the ready that include print making, fibre, wood and metal, paper making and ceramics; but, it’s the only arts institution with national and international scope in a tiny town full of local residents who either do not care to understand what goes on at the Centre or consider it an unsightly hazard ruining a mountain landscape (the Centre is located half-way up one of the mountains surrounding the town) – of course there are also residents and outside visitors who attend the concerts and dance performances. Regardless, the Centre is isolated, no argument; this condition is internally acknowledged by the Visual Arts departmental who understands the website as the institution’s highest priority because it knows that hardly anyone is going to make the trek deep into a protected national park nestled in the mountains to go see an art exhibition or conduct studio visits. This is the anomaly of the Banff Centre – full open access combined with full isolation.

A view from the Centre

I wanted to share a couple of experiences I have had while at The Banff Centre for anyone who may not know what the heck this place is, or who are already interested and looking to apply to a visual arts program:

Artist Residencies: Two began at the same time as I started work at the Walter Phillips Gallery, with about 20 participating artists working diligently for seven weeks – both a Masters Class: The Object of Art and the Art as Object run by Ken Lum and a Thematic Residency: Towards Language run by Greg Staats. It was wonderful to see how their studios progressed from empty white rooms to dirty dishevelled spaces….although some stayed vacant and minimal, which is equally relevant. I really got a sense of how different people work and the sort of production that can be achieved here. It’s different than working at a fine arts degree in a university because people here are doing only what they want to be doing and are rather self-sufficient (what we can call ‘professionalized’). Some are younger artists who are in between a BFA and MFA while others like Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Adrian Stimson, and Alex Janvier are well established and respected artists.

Symposium: Painter House Conversations: I had the opportunity to sit in on a series of sessions that addressed issues surrounding the representation of aboriginal art (both historical and contemporary) in concern to the curatorial, educational and artistic work of participants from the UK, United States and Canada that included: Ryan Rice (Curator of Exhibitions and Programs, Institute of American Indian Arts), Jolene Rickard (Associate Professor, Art History and Visual Arts, Cornell University), Candice Hopkins (Aboriginal Curator-in-Residence, National Gallery of Canada), Jesse McKee (independent curator and recent graduate, Royal College of Art), Jean Fisher (tutor, Critical and Curatorial Studies, Royal College of Art) , Mark Nash (Professor and Head of the Department of Curating Contemporary Art, RCA), Paul Chaat Smith (Curator, National Museum of the American Indian), Adrian Stimson (artist and independent curator), and Kitty Scott (Director: Visual Arts, Banff International Curatorial Institute and the Walter Phillips Gallery). I was responsible for audio recording, additional note-taking and coffee-making during the week-long event, but however glamorous my official duties were, the opportunity to meet and chat with these professional curators was a privilege. In particular I got to meet with Jean Fisher who worked as an exhibition reviewer for Artforum in the 1980s to cover artists and exhibitions that were peripheral at the time because they included aboriginal artists, women and other social minorities, worked as an independent curator with these same peripheral artists out of political motivations and is founding editor of Third Text; she shared some of her experiences with me and offered some perspective on the significant changes in curatorial practice from the 1980s to today.

Curatorial Speakers’ Series – Nicolaus Schafhausen and Chris Eamon: This programme is organized by the Walter Phillips Gallery, so one of my occasional responsibilities is to provide introductions for these speakers and help with minor technical requirements during the talks. Since everyone simply ends up drinking and sharing suppers within normal circumstances during visits within the Banff Centre, interactions are made to be much more relaxed. I was initially very nervous when I was included to attend a supper at a gourmet restaurant as part of the Painter House Conversations’ events and was sat next to Schafhaussen, the Director of the Witte de With in Rotterdam (Netherlands), who had just arrived to give a talk as part of the Speakers’ Series. These are the exact sorts of circumstances that occur frequently while at the Centre. When you are placed within the same room/studio/supper table with artists, curators and writers, it is up to you to seize the experiences as opportunities to make connections, strike up conversations and learn something from these experts. The environment of the Banff Centre allows for these situations to happen for you and all you have to do is learn to take advantage.

International residents and workers: Before I arrived at the Banff Centre I didn’t have a true understanding of the sort of placement of the institution within the international art scene, basically expecting it to be filled exclusively with Canadians. The promotion of the institution as an international cultural hub is true as there are people who have travelled here for shorter residencies (4-7weeks) and longer 3-6 month contracts, like me, from around the world – England, Germany, Switzerland, United States, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Norway, Iceland – and those are just ones that I remember off-hand. I’ve certainly learned about different cultures more than I ever did living in Toronto or Vancouver, if only because here I can talk to people directly and become friends with them; they are not located within isolated communities keeping to themselves like in a larger city, but instead they are all working, drinking and suffering from isolation anxiety together.

Studio parties and pillow talk: always bonuses – and evidently where much of the interesting gossip and fun is exchanged.

The Banff Centre is a microcosm of the art scene in every Canadian city I’ve experienced: peripheral, confusing to the general public, internally focused and masturbatory with its sights set on international rather than local promotion. If embraced, the microcosm effect makes it easier to shake off feelings of isolation so one can learn to take advantage of the innumerable exceptional events that I have had the opportunity to experience here. I agree with what previous Banff Centre residents told me before I arrived, that “everyone must spend time here.” Whether it’s for the social connections, for the development of a continually shifting roster of artists to build curatorial ideas from, for meetings with international art and curatorial stars, for a network of artists interested in similar practices and philosophies, for the studios with facilitators that can assist in making ideas into realities, or for, of course, the epic nature and mountainscapes that surround you.

If anyone out there in XBLOG-reading-land is considering a residency or a work-study position at the Banff Centre, wondering about what sort of facilities are available (or not) for what you’d be interested in pursuing while you’re here, or are already on your way and want some information on the town of Banff and it’s bizarre quirks, I welcome any and all questions here on XBLOG!

Downtown Banff am

For more information go to  www.march18.org

Photographs by Kevin Robbins

In spite of having lived in Toronto for only three years (so far), I have developed a strong sense of home. The reasons for that sort of attachment I cannot explain, at least off the top of my head. Though they are certainly highly relevant. I came to live in Toronto after having exhausted my desire to live in a small city such as London, Ontario as well as relatively massive cities such as New York, where in both cases, for one reason or another, I never developed a genuine sense of attachment to anything cultural. I never felt that I belonged.

In a rather complex, particularly sudden series of events, I have come to see myself as part of a community in which I wasn’t born, Toronto. And in spite of the relatively few years I have spent in this town I am a part of it, a citizen who is involved in and contributing to, its cultural territory. In considering this, I have actually started to examine myself and seen in my actions basic traits of what it is that makes me ‘a local’.

I make art inspired by and for the local public, and I go to school here. I do my taxes here. I bike or walk everywhere, among other reasons, so I don’t pollute the ‘local’ air. I support local businesses and I drink local beer; etc. This is beside the fact that I do carry in me a sentimental connection (reword) to the life of this city, the crappy streetcars, the Don Valley trails, the cooling breeze from the lake, the elderly Chinese practicing tai chi in Grange Park. All these unique things, even the criticism we get from other Canadians for being too American, I love it all. But this perspective is by no means far from common. Like me, millions of others have come to this city to feel the type of attachment to which I have previously referred to, and which I think is a two-way avenue. Toronto offers you advantages and disadvantages but one must be willing to adapt.

To reafirm,that my settlement story is not the first of its kind, I live a city whose history is largely made up of stories similar to my own. Last week I came across a recently released book titled City of Words: Toronto through Her Writer’s Eyes. Edited by Sarah Elton, City of Words contains a compilation of stories, essays and poems told through the words of over 50 writers from varying cultural and generational backgrounds. The book also offers a variety of  photographs covering  different aspects of Toronto.

Both the written and visual elements attempt to answer the question of what it means to be involved with the city; culturally, geographically, architectonically, historically, economically and even sentimentally, both from the perspective of its citizens (born and raised here), and from new arrivers. The perspectives offered by the latter demographics collide at one point or another, forming a relationship, which in my opinion gives Toronto its unique identity, which signifies the embracement and celebrated allocation of cultural diversity.

And certainly Toronto’s position in regards to diversity is only one of the aspects that highlights this city’s uniqueness, and it is definitely not the only characteristic which so many people find lovable about this city. From my own perspective, when trying to pin down what makes an awesome cultural mosaic, one has to consider and examine not just a place’s cultural variety in terms of diaspora, and what different ethnic groups occupy a city, but how the distinct demographic groups that make up the whole city interconnect with cities profile, its history, geography, laws, economy, moral codes, etc. All of which determine, to a very large extent, social and individual relations, in other words whether they feel at home in their city, love it, hate it, feel indifferent and what have you.

The complex group of relations found in Toronto also plays a very similar role in the majority of modern cities particularly in North America. However, by comparison not all cities offer the – for the most part – favorable social atmosphere to such a relatively large number of people as does the city of Toronto. In City of Words I got a chance (important) to experience an embodiment and not just an illustration of what it means be a part of Toronto’s social atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the book has inspired me to further address my own social awareness.

London artist Ron Benner will present on his work on a panel which will discuss issues that relate to GMOs and sustainable practices in food production with Arlene Stein, Sarah Wakefield, and a student representative from The Hot Yam! student organization.

Event : organized by student members of the Hart House Farm Committee,  Hart House Social Justice Committee and Hart House Art Committee.

Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Time : 3 – 5 PM

Place : Debates Room in Hart House, University of Toronto

“Join Amanda Procter from Pueblito Canada and Ananya Ohri from York University, for a discussion about two different approaches to using art as a tool for community development.”

Follow the link above for details

and

I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY YOUR READING WEEK

Late Night in MY Bedroom

A few weeks ago I ran into Joshua Barndt at XPACE. At the time I was editing a blog for XBLOG, when Joshua started up a conversation with my co-workder Elise Windsor, who was sitting right by me. He handed her a business card and made her promise to attend an event he was hosting that same night. Overhearing their conversation I was suddenly seduced by the sound of the word event. Joshua noticed my curiosity. So he gave me a business card and told me I should be there too. By this point, I was attending an event!

Business card

Along with the business card, he provided Elise and I with some extra information about the show. He mentioned the names of the featured artists: Nirvana the Band the Show, Team Macho and, Everything All the Time. However, because these are all local groups, and at various stages in their careers, I was only familiar with Team Macho. But, what actually rang a bell about this whole thing was the phrase: “It’s gonna be funny” Yes, fun is something I can always relate to. And then Joshua wrapped up our casual meeting with “Show and Tell Gallery tonight at 10”. It was a Wednesday, a day of the week when for me nothing much happens. And again, by this point not only I was into the idea of going to this event, but also I was convinced that it was going to be a good time.

I left XPACE that day with a business card and an event invite. But I did not want to get there and have no idea of what was going on; so I turned to the content of the card for further clues. Like most business cards, this business card was stamped with a URL: “LATENIGHTINTHEBEDROOM.COM”. Hit enter. In that site, visitors can find a list of videos, which are broken down by ‘episode’. “Episode 6”, was, at that time, the latest episode, featuring Jonas Bonetta singing/playing “Evening Hymns”. This part of “Episode 6” takes place on a rooftop with a beautiful view of Toronto’s skyline. By this point I was completely immersed by appealing melodies and visuals both of which were embedded in that episode.

Screenshot of "Episode 6", Jonas Bonetta Performing "Evening Hymns" on a Toronto Rooftop. 2009.

In an attempt to wrap my head around this ‘show’ I looked at the length of this “episode”: 27:01 and wondered if the whole thing was a video of Jonas’ performance. But to my surprise the video featured a variety of artists and musicians. For the most part, LATE NIGHT IN THE BEDROOM fuctions as a talk show. Each segment features a different artist (or group of artists) in dialogue about their work and ideas with host Carey Wass. Sometimes the interviews are also made outside of the recording studio, in various locations across downtown Toronto. These are all the things I found out after watching “Episode 6”. By this point, besides being excited about the event I was to attend that night, I was excited to see local artists presented in a brilliantly produced and almost underground local show.

At the end of the night, the event at Show and Tell Gallery proved to be a blast. A bubbly crowd packed the place. And an entertaining line-up of artists, performers and musicians ensured that “Episode 7” will be another successful show.
By this point the whole puzzle had come together. I really can’t wait for the next gig.

To see the Late Night in the Bedroom episodes go to:

http://www.latenightinthebedroom.com/